Former Sunday Mercury chief photographer Ken Green has died, aged 67, after a year-long battle against leukaemia. Peter Whitehouse, a past editor of the Mercury, pays tribute to one of Britain’s best lensmen.

Ken Green was one of the most accomplished newspaper photographers of his generation.

As a frontline newsman he was technically superb, sensitive and quite fearless.

Some of his most striking images came from the protest marches, football violence and riots he covered with such cool professionalism.

The pictures he brought back could only have been obtained from the thick of the action and on more than one occasion both he and his equipment were bloodied and in need of repair.

His powerful photograph of an injured West Midlands policeman taken during the Handsworth riots of the 1980s won him national acclaim.

But for those of us who worked with him in the late ’60s, ’70s and beyond it was his creativity as a features specialist that made him so outstanding.

There were no lengths he would not go to get the picture he wanted.

He once persuaded the actor Norman Rodway, who was then appearing as Richard III at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon to travel all the way to the scene of the King’s fateful battle at Bosworth to be photographed.

And the great thespian went in Ken’s car in full stage gear, including sword.

He had natural empathy with actors and performers. He photographed the Beatles at their first appearance in the Midlands and it was Ken who had the last picture session with Tony Hancock before the legendary comedian took his own life. The images of a forlorn human being were haunting.

At one time he had a love affair with sunsets and would stop anywhere and get the camera out if he saw an evening sky he liked the look of.

Months later, these shots would mysteriously appear as the backdrop to buildings or landmarks he had taken and decided needed a little something extra. He spent hours in the darkroom concocting these ‘perfect’ pictures.

A Midlander to the core, he revelled in images that recorded a passing way of life; the old Birmingham meat market at 4am, the canals in winter, the last of the back-to-back houses.

But he was never hung up on grim realism. And having conjured up an image in his mind he would work non-stop to make it appear.

He once spent days finding a farmer with a machine that shook cider apples from a tree and then getting a girl to sit underneath with an umbrella as apples rained down.

It was one of the shots that won him the 1979 Midland Press Photographer of the Year title – one of his many awards – which was presented to him by the newly-installed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

What he wanted always was the unexpected, the striking, the extraordinary. But he belonged to an era when the media still had room for a touch of poetry.

For younger newspapermen like me, Ken’s dedication and enthusiasm was an inspiration. Working with him was a privilege and an invaluable education.

Wherever he is now we can be sure he is already re-arranging it in order that it makes a better picture.